


you're saying that like it's a good thing

by orphan_account



Category: Hollyoaks
Genre: Astrology, Canon Lesbian Relationship, Character Study, F/F, Fluff and Angst, Missing Scenes, Pre-car accident, Trauma, Vignette, i haven't written fic in like 2 years, op humbly apologises, trevor mentions, unsure if ooc
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-05-19
Updated: 2019-05-19
Packaged: 2020-03-07 14:32:38
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,924
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18875131
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/orphan_account
Summary: (i've never met someone like you before, grace)--Somewhere on the coast, enclosed by four off-white walls in a tiny hotel room, there's a therapist on annual leave and a woman who drives her past all means of sensibility. Occasionally, they're driven to extremes - like the outside seas, a tightrope walk between turbulence and stillness. For the most part, they balance each other out.





	you're saying that like it's a good thing

**Author's Note:**

> despite my tendency to delete every fic i ever write.,,, i am BACK!!!!! watching this hell show until one half of the ship leaves!!! needless 2 say this is written *BEFORE* the hit-and-run story arc; im sorry if this is rusty but my fav ship barely gets any screentime and if u cant receive the content u want, u may as well create it. so like... shoutout to all two (2) grace/farrah shippers, and whoever else comes out of the woodwork after this (please reveal yrselves). please note this is 90% Dumb Headcanons and inevitably slightly(!) grace-centric since we have chosen to stan forever

"You haven't said it yet." She's overly casual in bringing it up, preoccupied with tracing out the inked designs on your arm. It's a force of habit for her: you've narrowed the explanations down to 'enjoys skin-to-skin contact', 'fully aware it tickles' or 'actual genuine form of entertainment'. All three are equally plausible.  
"I don't want to rush you." You're all excuses, overcomplicating: if it's not too early, it's way overdue. You want to say it, you'd love to say it; you've never been more certain. With previous girlfriends, the moment was easier to seek out, but with her - especially considering the Glenn horror, which she elects to (figuratively) bury under the rug - you're unsure how she'd take it.  
"It's been three months, Farrah, it ain't like you've just asked me out." She forces a laugh, likely fully aware of how she sounds. "Not trying to be needy, obviously. Not forcing it out; I mean -- Curtis really likes you and I just wanna know if he should be getting attached. And if you're scared of how I'm gonna respond, then--"  
"Okay, yeah, I do." You run a hand through her hair, internally cringing at how cheesy you're about to be, and wholeheartedly blame her for it. "I love you."  
She props herself up on her elbows, meeting you halfway for a kiss; a slow smirk playing on her lips. "Mm, don't think I heard you."  
"I mean..." You shift so you're very gently leaning on top of her, the mattress below you offering a quiet creak. "I can say it again if you want?"  
  
Somewhere on the coast, enclosed by four off-white walls in a tiny hotel room, there's a therapist on annual leave and a woman who drives her past all means of sensibility. Occasionally, they're driven to extremes - like the outside seas, a tightrope walk between turbulence and stillness. For the most part, they balance each other out.

* * *

  
Very few things frustrate you. You're a rational person - or, at least, you'd like to think you are. 'Practise what you preach' is your job's cardinal rule: you're a full-time peacemaker, and while your stubborn side is desperate to cause chaos, you've got the composure to make sure your arguments end constructively.  
  
These days, it's harder than it used to be.  
  
Let's say, hypothetically speaking, that there's a woman in your life: Grace, let's call her. Completely random, of course. She enters your home, wins over your siblings, learns your tattoos' backstories one by one... and even then, she won't let you know her. Not initially. Not for months. If you weren't trying to piece the jigsaw together, it likely wouldn't ever happen.  
  
Some days, you fool yourself into thinking she's lowered her defences: she's closer to a house-cat than a lioness, and once you're exposed to that side of her, she could never truly scare you. On any occasion, she'll choose your lap over an available seat, comfortably accompanying you in your Netflix binge of the week (self-care... though when it turned into a couples' thing, you have no idea). You'll end up on a tangent without realising - this week, it's how Russian Doll is an elaborate metaphor for addiction and recovery - and she'll tease you for it endlessly. You pick your moments carefully -- testing the waters with a question about her life, small and innocuous enough -- and she'll look over her shoulder with narrowed eyes (" _Are you trying to therapy me, Dr. Maalik? Am I a case study to you?_ "). Playful enough not to move from her little-spoon positioning, with enough underlying warning for you to change the subject. One step forward, five steps back. You've still yet to find out when her birthday is.  
  
You didn't start off with complete faith: the first time Grace stayed over, she'd bought Yaz a lollipop. The minute you were in earshot, your sister's remark was "does she think I'm five?"  
"Shut up and be nice," you'd hissed in response - before dinner, they were conspiring over zodiac signs, concluding that your Taurus (Tauran? Taurian?) traits are _Why Farrah Is The Way She Is™_ (and how your girlfriend being a Scorpio means you're basically soulmates. Yasmine's words, not Grace's... well, that and "How does it even _work_ with acrylics that long? I mean, y'know--"  
"None of your business, thank you," you interrupted, "but it does.")  
  
God, what else? She's eerily good at reading you, having guessed you'd have a vinyl collection based on your Hendrix tattoo alone. Turns out she hums along to them in the shower - the first time you'd caught her was the closest you've ever come to seeing her embarrassed. (Needless to say, you'd made up for sneaking up on her.) Her vocabulary's about 90% profanity, though she narrowly keeps a lid on it when her son's around.  
"We've already had one nursery incident," she explains, with the adamant insistence of a court testimony, "but that wasn't my fault... I _swear_."  
You flash her a mocking grin. "Yeah, we know you do. Don't we, Curtis?"  
She attempts to look annoyed, but melts a little when he laughs. "Oi, you two don't get to gang up on me!"

* * *

For someone who'd scrap in the streets without hesitation, conflict between the two of you is few and far-between - you're lucky to be trained in de-escalation, resigned to calming her down in public before she can pull someone's eyes out with her nails (which, frankly, you still wouldn't put past her). Count to 100, you tell her, or ten in Spanish if you want to switch things up. She never tries that one, so you've started suggesting the backwards alphabet instead. She'll crack jokes about her temper, laugh about her jealousy, telling you of the occasion her dad impregnated a woman young enough to be her sister; the story culminating in Grace attempting to push her from a cliff. "I wish I was kidding," she looks mildly embarrassed at worst, as opposed to remotely horrified. You suppose not everyone can be self-aware.  
  
The first fight was a month in, and it's the only one to have genuinely stuck with you. Over a little brown teddy bear, of all things... perfectly innocent, even uncharacteristic, until you'd felt the gun stashed inside. With her criminal background, you've got a 'don't ask, don't tell' agreement - and it's firmly in the past, so you don't know why you'd doubted her. Perhaps it was self-doubt: of course you're not her usual type. The two of you couldn't be more different -- she knows it, you know it -- and when she refused to get rid of it, you'd felt sick to your core; even worse, felt complicit. Your idea of rebellion is motorcycling and pushing the boundaries of religion: as for hers, you don't want to know. Except for the tiny nagging voice inside you that does.  
  
Three days of silence, before she cracks -  
"I need it to feel safe."  
It's a life she swears is behind her, but the ties will remain stuck to her: her waking life will be spent looking over her shoulder, triple-checking on Curtis before she heads to bed, playing the roles of mother and father in equal parts. Only now does it sink in that the more you know, the worse it's going to get: her distance is an overwhelming effort to keep you near.  
  
The bear stays under her bed.

* * *

She had a husband - you know that much - and outside of the stories she'll tell her child (because he needs his dad, even if he's only present in spirit), you know nothing of him. There's rumours attached to her name, mainly surrounding the circumstances ( _died in her arms... turned up in the village, wedding dress covered in his blood... she didn't change out of it for a week),_ but she's erased most physical traces of him from the flat. No, not erased: moved. You wish she'd have told you herself, for the exact reasons she likes to roll her eyes at; from what you know of her, she carries more trauma than one person should have to deal with. He eased her load, which you're willing to bet on, until he added to it - you wonder, _is all this why she can't sleep_? Can't-slash-won't. There's an untouched box of melatonin tablets in the bathroom cabinet, and she's got a habit of pretending to with her eyes closed: you only know she's drifted off once the stirring starts, sometimes waking up in cold sweats, waking you - "sorry," she'll mumble, "go back to sleep." By morning, you'll find her splayed out on the sofa, red-eyed, telly on a low murmur with subtitles for good measure.

There are certain points in the year where you know not to question, not to prise her open; just to be present where and when necessary - like she was when you'd found out about Lily. You find it with most of your patients: birthdays, death anniversaries, random dates that have no wider significance but temporarily halts their personal orbit. The month of April is spent unsteady on her feet: Trevor's birthday at the beginning, her dad's death at the end (five years on). She's counterproductive, though in no way do you have the right to point it out - working overtime at the Loft, spending minimal time with her son, locking herself in the bathroom when it sinks in which parent he's growing up to look like. _It's a good thing_ , you tell her; _it's a good thing_ , she concludes, _I get to keep him close to me_. You'd think that would be the end, but when you hear a smash from upstairs, you assume the worst -- it's just shattered picture frames from a half-open drawer of keepsakes (the only place memories are allowed to go - tucked away, where she doesn't bear daily witness to everything she's lost. Both parents, a sister, a fiancé who let her down constantly and a husband who never did), hunched over in sobs with a leather jacket clutched to her. She'll cry herself sick, then it's business as usual for another year; memories and red wine fresh out of her system. Either that or she's back into the habit of hiding it.

Sometimes, she dreams of nothing, and that's her at her most peaceful. Save for the gentle intakes of breath, the slow rise and fall of her stomach, this is the only time you find her silent. You wake up before she does, as is the nature of your job - and in those minutes before the awakening and the goodbye kiss, you take a moment to realise what you've got. Lying dormant beside you is a force of nature- strong, beautiful Grace; maternal to a fault, argumentative til her last breath; the one who lives in excess, burying herself in violence, sex, denial; well-acquainted with death but pretending they'd never met. _Perhaps_ , you realise, _you've been overcomplicating. Everything about her that matters, you already know. She's been inserting herself into the cracks in your rigid, structured - happy - life, trying to do the same._

You don't have a saviour complex. Okay, maybe you do, and maybe it's a problem. She's the one aspect of your life you haven't learned to regulate or rationalise, and you're beginning to grow so invested that it places everything else in shadow. It's nearly hard to prise yourself apart from her, her thoughts and feelings and wants; view yourself as at all interesting outside of her. The rest of your life begins to lose its shine, though you suppose that's what love is.


End file.
